The Syntax of Speech Acts

Deictic Inversion as an Evidential Strategy in English

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5901465
AutoresAna Ojea (0000-0003-3873-7895, Universidad de Oviedo, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume9
Fascículo5
Páginas183
Data de publicação2024-05-17
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoLanguages (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
EditoraMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages9050183
OpenAlexW4397009508
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas49

This paper presents empirical evidence to support the so-called syntactization of discourse, that is, the projection of relevant pragmatic features in the narrow syntax. In particular, it analyses deictic inversion in English, a construction which is used by the speaker to point at a proximal or distal location and bring the addressee's attention to an entity related to that location (e.g., Here comes the bus). It offers a novel account of this construction, which takes it to be an evidential strategy in a language that does not have standard evidential markers; this evidential status explains its main differences with locative inversion, a construction with which it is pragmatically and structurally related. Deictic inversion therefore receives a natural explanation in a framework that maps syntax with the speech act and introduces in the derivation pragmatic information about the participants in the communicative exchange and about the source of the information for the proposition asserted

Deixis · Indirect speech · Inversion (geology · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Speech recognition · Syntax · Computer Science · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Lexicography and Language Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence · Geology